Seeking simple, secure and effective AV tools at ISE 2018

The Shure stand at Europe’s biggest trade fair for integrated systems saw more visitors seeking AV products providing both security and convenience.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who attended the recent ISE show in Amsterdam that the important integrated systems event once again broke all records – both in visitor and exhibitor numbers. Almost 81,000 people walked through the doors of the RAI convention center in the Dutch city to discover the latest and greatest technology from the AV world in early February. I can certainly confirm that there were more people visiting the Shure stand this year and clearly more end users there than ever before.

Being able to sit down with integrators and end users to explain our technology and let them experience it first-hand continues to be the greatest benefit of attending ISE. As this is now the biggest AV show for the French market, ISE is an important opportunity to give customers an overview of our product portfolio. But besides keeping them up-to-date with our current products, it also allows us to gain feedback from them on those products and discuss the general direction we’re pushing our technology.

Many of the new AV products catching my eye at this year’s ISE show were an evolution of previous equipment, especially in the touch and collaboration technology areas. But no matter how much things change, one thing is certain – simple, secure and effective tools that make life easier are still the order of the day for both integrators and end users alike.

With that in mind, Shure made two big announcements at ISE. First, the Intellimix® P300 audio conferencing processor is now available, which is great news for everybody. And second, we also offer Shure Network Audio Encryption that provides end-to-end network audio encryption when using the P300 and selected Shure ANIs with Microflex® Advance™ and Microflex® Wireless. Find out more about that here.

The impact of these announcements is hugely significant for our customers.

As far as I’m concerned, the P300 is simply magic for many reasons: It is the perfect partner for Microflex. It provides enhanced audio quality. The P300 also reduces set-up time considerably – a system can now be up and running in just minutes, rather than hours of costly onsite programming time. And when bundled with Microflex Advance/Microflex Wireless, it also brings the overall price of the solution down. Plus, should there be a service issue or any queries we are fully able to support it. The P300 bundle option was particularly appealing to the IT professionals visiting ISE. They really seemed to appreciate the simplicity of its setup – and perhaps relieved it was so straightforward that they didn’t need to be an audio engineer to get it working!

In the past, there has been concern among IT administrators that AV equipment sitting on their networks could create security concerns. However, the introduction of Shure Network Audio Encryption will further strengthen our credentials in this area. Encryption protects networked audio connections between Shure products against security breaches, while ensuring the content remains confidential without sacrificing sound quality.

Since the opening of the new Shure Paris office last year, we’ve already seen a huge increase in sales and adoption of Shure audio technologies in the region. Certification and education remains crucial to success in this market and being able to interact with so many key people in Amsterdam was a great way to start the year. I’m looking forward to building on the momentum from ISE, particularly on the interest in the P300, to make 2018 the best year yet for Shure in France.